This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
The Catholic Church has been riven by internal conflict over how liberal to go since Vatican II. The reactionaries(we should go more conservative than we are now) are generally referred to as traditionalists, the hardliner conservatives as orthodox, and the hardliner liberals as progressives, with conservative and moderate and liberal being fuzzier terms for people that don’t belong in those camps, more directional than indicating firm allegiance.
JPII and in particular Benedict XVI managed to keep a lid on this conflict, although there were a few notable blowups under JPII and in a lot of cases they kept a lid on it by ignoring the divisions as long as the fighting was behind closed doors. Pope Francis, alas, is not anywhere near as good of a manager. He’s probably not a progressive, but his poor management has left him with very few other allies and little choice but to implement or at least tolerate unpopular and or unwise parts of their agenda. Now you’ve got the powerful conservative former head of the doctrinal department kept from open opposition by expecting the pope to die and be replaced by Benedict XVI’s(quite orthodox) top diplomat within the next year, local bishops openly siding with traditionalist groups they had not previously been on speaking terms with to signal opposition to the pope, the German bishops conference announcing a plan to approve gay marriage against Vatican disapproval, a looming confrontation over the next Vatican doctrine chief(this is traditionally the de facto number 2 spot) in which that same former head appears to have already vetoed a progressive appointee by making threats with the backing of a double digit number of cardinals, and the American bishops literally making heresy accusations against each other to the media(which is unprecedented). All of this is against a backdrop in which more revelations of sex abuse mishandling, this time mostly with perpetrators in the pope’s inner circle, coming out.
I think Francis does at the core have a solid or at least traditional understanding. There's a couple of things going on: he's a South American Jesuit, he does have the instinct for the pastoral role as the primary one, and he tends to say things off the cuff that the media then take up and amplify as their message (the one about "who am I to judge?" was not about "the gay is okay" and if you read the full context, it's in a specific case that was presented to him in a press interview aboard the Vatican jet, but that's not how it was reported in the papers).
I don't have much personal liking for Francis as his style is completely at odds with my own tendencies, and he does have a liberal streak. But "liberal" is not the same as "progressive" and I think he does believe in things like the divinity of Christ, the Real Presence, etc. He has a taste for the kind of lay devotions that the Spirit of Vatican II crowd looked down their noses at and swept away when in power.
I wish he'd clobber a few of the ones straying off the reservation, but he does believe the job of the Shepherd is to go after the sheep, not drive them further off.
Agree that Francis doesn’t seem personally very progressive(hence why I draw the distinction between liberal and progressive), but he’s definitely increasingly reliant on progressives to do anything and his weakness as a manager is not helped by his tendency to come down like a ton of bricks to his right.
Yeah, that's the Jesuit in him (I was going to say "South American Jesuit" but it's pretty much all the Jebbies everywhere, save for a few reactionary holdouts here and there).
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link